Careful what you wish for.
I agree that the brokerages handle 'recommendations' poorly. There is no commonality among levels of recommendation, and every brokerage has different termanology. They each have various axes to grind, and etc, etc, etc. Be careful what you wish for regarding regulation or standardization.
I certainly do not want the SEC regulating analyst's opinions. These are OPINIONS, guys. My dog is entitled to an opinion, as are all brokerage analysts. Clearly, I don't take the analysts' opinions too seriously. Collectively, they can be an indicator, individually they can stink. Today two different brokerage analysts came out with changes of OPINION on COMS, one an upgrade, one a downgrade. They both got good press, both sounded credable.
My point is that anlysts are paid to sound good, get good press for the company, and sound like they know the inside info. Many don't have a clue. They don't get paid any more when they are correct, and they can be manipulated by their management. Realize that and prosper.
Let the SEC chase Microsoft and IBM (still) antitrust issues but don't let them regulate any information available to us. That would scare me more than poor information from the idiot big house analysts. |
